Roughly textured by a rather haphazard pattern of illusionary pits and bumps, a veneer of bright bright yellow — as bright as sunshine — clings to the surface of this medium sized egg. Rather bulbous in shape, there's a funny little protrusion on the upper apex of the egg, as if part of the egg was budding off from the rest of it. At first, and perhaps even future glance, the darker shadows of goldenrod and saffron against the brighter sunshine yellow, and the curious way they seem to sink inwards gives the egg its rather pebbly texture appearance as if the egg itself were not entirely smooth. In fact, each little pit and dimple seems to be puckered inwards, as if whatever lies inside the egg is sour tasting — little lipless mouths drawn up tight in protest.

Secret of the Sword gains entry into your mind, sneakily easing itself into the depths of your thoughts. Probing, pushing, exploring, the mind of the unhatched dragonchild delves into yours with a ruthless efficiency. Looking, searching, seeking … for … for … your darkness, the meanness, the more wicked aspects of what might make you into a nasty terrible person. Surely you have them, those naughty terrible thoughts, of the time you might have wanted to push some weyrbrat into the manure pile in the stables, or swipe a sweet roll out from under the nose of some half-blind old auntie. Everyone has their darkness, and this young mind is determined to find it — to serve you and be your lieutenant in your evil dastardly deeds. A final push, and the presence in your thoughts suddenly freezes, and then fades altogether.

Secret of the Sword seems to have done a complete heel-face turn as it returns. Chastised now, the presence shutters away all thoughts of dark evil deeds, and instead begins to search for good things, for what makes you a good person, especially seeking out honor and justice. Of the time you helped that half-blind old auntie get across the Bowl, or the time you helped that weyrbrat muck out the stall of a particularly restive runner. There is a nimbus about you, so bright and pure and full of goodness, you half wonder if it shows on the outside as you stand on the Hatching Sands, hand pressed to the shell of this egg. No longer are the bad thoughts encouraged, redemption has been made. Together, you might serve the side of good, making the Weyr a better place.

Secret of the Sword communes silently with you, secure in the knowledge that while you might still be young and untried in the world, with a friend and companion such as this by your side — together you could right the wrongs, save the people, lead the good fight. Whatever you could do, you'd do it with honor. Honor seems dreadfully important to this unborn mind. The little dragon inside the shell, seems fixated on the thought, that it almost seems overwhelming. But there's a hope there too, of bright good things for the world and a good friend to share it with. The presence lingers, overly long, and then with a gentle flicker, the nimbus of light begins to fade about you, the glow diminishing until the mind within the egg has withdrawn entirely, settling into slumber to sleep and dream of happy things.

Fuzzy Wuzzy Was Half An Egg

The top of this egg is a gentle white. It is a smooth rolling hill covered in a fresh powdery snow, ripe for footprint making. This soft crest seems to glow with blues and yellows depending on the angle from which it is viewed at, adding a diamond finish to the sparkling white. There is an abrupt transition to the bottom half of this egg though, like someone has sliced two eggs apart and stuck the top of one egg with the bottom of another. If the top of this egg is snow, the bottom is dirt streaked with mud from the melting snow above. A murky brown color, the bottom looks to be wrapped in a thick stringy fur or possibly even tree bark. The strings of fur seem to be mostly heading from top to bottom, but there are plenty that jut to the side or wander off from their original path, creating the sort of fur you might find on a crawlie instead of a canine. Beneath the intricate veins of brown straw, in the tiny crevices between, a skin of a darker brown is hidden away like the last line of defense for the creature contained within.

Insane Case From Outer Space crash lands into your thoughts with a boom and a bang! You get the feeling that you're hanging upside-down for a moment, or maybe it's this other presence that 's hanging? It's hard to tell, but soon enough you feel righted again. This mind seems to show very little interest in you from the get go. In fact… is it trying to hide from you? It's trying, certainly. Trying to hide in plain sight, even though you can sense it, right there in front of you! It seems to realize you can see it, and instead starts to skirt around, trying to hide in your… memories? Oddly enough it picks the most mundane memories to do this in. Breakfast yesterday. Dinner from three nights ago. One might be left wondering… what is the point?

Insane Case From Outer Space is creeping around still. It is… learning you. What exactly it's learning about you is for it to know and you to find out! It seems to trip and get stuck on this particular on this memory. It's one of the more embarrassing ones for you, too. How rude and uncomfortable! But somehow this other presence isn't phased at all. No, we meant to do that! This was all part of the master plan, this one failure is just a stepping stone. Plan A amongst the collective alphabet of plans. And somehow it makes you feel just a little bit better about this situation. Is it… helping?

Insane Case From Outer Space has stopped creeping and is now strutting. Yes, confident, not crazy. Why would you even think that? Strut strut! Ah yes! Here is what it was looking for! You can sense the warm, fuzzy feelings coming from this other presence. It has succeeded! It's found that which it was in search of for all this time! It has triumphed! It is… the memory of walking out onto the sands just a few moments before. And why not? This is the most important of memories! This is your memory of… it. Which you are now building, which it can examine further and thus create more to examine… Around and around it seems to go until it fades away again in the heat of the sands and noises around you.

Holy Guacamole Egg

Not quite perfectly ovoid, there are areas of this egg which seem almost flattened and misshapen, although the shell is smooth to the touch. The base color is a dark forest green, with variations of shading and highlighting creating a dappled effect across the whole of the egg. Towards the bottom of the egg and usually hidden by sand are uglier shades of brown and puce, which spread upward into more pleasant hues. At the apex, the dappling and variations stop abruptly as if cut by a sharp knife, and instead of browns and dark greens, there is only a solid, pale green, the color only broken up by a swirl of mahogany.

Dancing clouds and flying spirits rush into your mind, immediately seeking for memories of flight, wind, and great heights. Clifftops? Large drops? Diving? Dancing? Spinning? What have you done to feel truly alive? How about a double inside out loop? Oh it promises to be such fun! Bright pinks, blues, oranges, yellows and browns crash around your mind, a sweet melody fluttering around in the back of your awareness. There is a promise of adventure against the whistling winds. Are you worthy? Are you ready for the trials that will surely come, with this adventure called life?

Dancing clouds and flying spirits are troubled by darkness. The mind within shudders and shivers at some tension- whether your own or foreshadowed, is unclear. Be that as it may… can you handle the danger? What is your deepest secret, your guiltiest pleasure? This being will find it, insistent in its search of your past, present, and hopes for the future. Colorful tendrils become more and more vivid as the search continues. Time will tell if you'll come through for this future dragon, and just imagine if you did. Oh, the danger and dancing that the two of you will enjoy!

Dancing clouds and flying spirits finally begin to calm, receding yet leaving you with a sense of glee and readiness. The adventures will come. There is a sense of apology for troubling you with darkness. But oh, everything will work out! Shooting stars flicker across your mind, promising a wonderful future even as the colorful tendrils and dim melody fade, fade, fade away.

Prickly Desert Mirage Egg

Raspberry wraps its warmth in thick flowery pedals of color around this particular egg. A bit too bright perhaps for Western's sands as it nearly pulses with the magenta hue that seems more likely to be found in a pie or some girly alcoholic drink. Let's not forget the splashes of green that reach up like leaf-like blades of lime at the apex of each 'pedal'. They appear to grow out of the fleshy body, reaching towards the crown of this egg, slipping and sliding but not still unable to steal the show from the glaring primary color of pink. It most definitely appears as if this egg has some sort of vegetative growth but looks can always be deceiving.

Tasty in Pink zooms by you at blaring speed. VROOOOOM. Perhaps you missed it the first time, but that's okay, it whips by again, the sound rushing past your other ear. All the while laughter bubbles up around you. Everything around you smells so good, almost willing you to reach out and take a bite, out of the egg? Surely not! But you can't help but consider the thought. Perhaps it'd taste like peppermint? Or how about chewy with a dash of sour? Or chocolate, let's not forget that. Once again there's a laugh and you have the sudden urge to yell, 'Weee!' and throw your arms into the air. This is a ride right? Are you having fun yet?

Tasty in Pink zips by you again, although this time it appears as if the it's going slower and slower still until there is the distinct sound of crying. All it wants to do is be free, to zip through the sands like it was meant to do, like it was /laid/ to do. But you see, eggs don't make the best of racing vehicles you see, and this egg, oh, well it definitely wants to be free, surfing the sands, the water, the air. Oh, it doesn't matter, it just wants to be free. A muffled sniffle sounds and you feel a pang in your chest. Will you help me? How can you resist the pained sense you get from this egg? Of course you want to help! You just want to reach out and give it a little nudge don't you? No one will notice if it slides down its mound, right?

Tasty in Pink is free! You're so amazing! You're my Stinkbrain! You're my hero! It's so excited I could verp? What's a verp? Oh what, you've never gotten that feeling where you want to vomit and a burp at the same time? No? Well that's beside the point, this egg is totally ready for the race and you are its partner in crime you see. You hop on and it zips through mountains of whipped cream topped with cherries and peppermint valleys with massive jawbreakers that swish from side to side. Oh dear, did that one just get too close? Quick! To your right! No no! Your left! You look to your side expecting to see another person joining the race and then just as soon as the whole race started you're left alone with your heart thumping. You'll win the race next time, for sure.

Rich And Tropical Something or Another Egg

Exotic hues of the summer tropics thrive on this shell, bringing it's delicious touch to the clutch resting comfortably upon the sands. Brilliant veridian tones mottle across the wide and rounded bottom of the egg, nestling the jacinthe and citreous band that wraps around the center of this ovoid getaway. The finishing touches to this sweet sandy sensation is the apex; dipped incarnadine all the way to the prominent point where the party is disrupted by one tiny round spot of dark sienna.

Positively tiny compared to the rest of the eggs in the clutch, this globular little ovoid is a study in contradictions, and is best viewed in as many directions as possible. From the front half of the shell, a coating of earth and soil combine to give the shell a very loamy appearance. Darker streaks of muddy bark-brown hues can be seen, scraggled bits of floss-thin color that overlay the paler brown coating, adding an impression of fuzziness to the egg. And yet, when viewed from the opposite angle, the egg is entirely different, for along the top and bottom most portions of the curving shell, the brown coloration seems to peel away like a skin, exposing a startling shiny glaze of absinthe green. In the middle of this brilliant flash of verdancy, a much lighter blob of color — so pale it's nearly white — is stamped across the very center of the shell. Of a rather uncertain shape, almost as if it were an afterthought, the blob is surrounded by a narrow ring of little black pips, clustered together in twos and threes, the spaces between them filled by long streaks of pale white as if the center were radiating a halo from its very core.

Leonine Galactic Defender seeks further knowledge of you, a yearning to learn more about you and what makes you tick. There's a curious sensation — almost as if you were being taken apart and each one of your parts — your head, your hands and arms, your feet and legs — are all examined, your strengths and weaknesses assessed and measured before you find yourself being reassembled, your very being put back together to form the core of who you are. Having learned what it could of you, the presence fades in a burst of starfire, a brilliant white flare of solar light and darkness envelopes you once more.

Leonine Galactic Defender makes a final foray into your thoughts. Now, you are studied, examined and inspected. Who are you really? What box can you be put into? Are you quiet, thoughtful and introspective — a leader of men (or women) and dragons? Or are you a jokester — cracking jokes and teasing your friends, winning over the ladies (or the men) with your charm? Are you smart, athletic and quick? Are you naive, unsure in the ways of the world, particularly love — but willing to do what's necessary? Or are you trying to look tough and full of bravado, deep down cherishing a soft heart for the little things in life — with an appetite to match? Are you any of these things? Are you none of them? Whatever you are, satisfaction has been gained by this unhatched draconic child, a greater understanding of who you are, and for the third time, darkness cloaks you and the mind withdraws for good.

Leonine Galactic Defender enters your mind with a roar — a clarion call of a proud feline — and a warm soft darkness draws about you, scattered by pinpoints of lights like the stars in the night sky above. Who are you? the presence asks, what are you? A faint feeling travels down your back, a feeling of ghostly talons reaching out to gather you in. There's nothing threatening about it, just a warm fuzzy feeling of being watched over by a benign authoritative figure — guarded and sheltered — as it strives to learn more about you aand who you are. One by one, the pinpoints of lights wink out, leaving you shrouded in the darkness, but utterly without fear. Someone is watching over you.

Too Manly To Be Yellow Egg

This egg seems to belong out on the sands. Viewing from the gallery one might mistake this sand-colored lump as just that, a lump of sand amongst the rest of the sand. The top bits are colored in a washed out straw color, looking generally smooth with bits of darker colored crevices segmenting the shell vertically. Further down the egg the lighter yellow seems to open up into a brighter citrine. This sunshine yellow is spotted with small flecks of brown, sun spots on this tiny yellow star. The segmentations visible above are more pronounced in the middle and bottom sections of the hardening shell, opening at the middle and converging at the bottom like the longitude lines on a map. The very bottom his shrouded in a dark muddy chocolate, as if the sands it sits on have cooked it a bit.

The Power to Move Mountains slowly creeps into the waters of your mind. Like the beginnings of a symphony, this first bit is just warming up. Listening to the acoustics of a new venue, hearing itself reflected back at it, only as your interpretation. Yes, it can see you. It can feel you. The embodiment of your own persona. Show your strengths! What are you good at? What makes you feel good? Things turned out for you well in this memory, and this mind focuses in to examine the circumstances around it with you. What about you made this possible? An so you can feel the presence growing, becoming stronger and more confident. The cool egg before you seems to be warming up, and you can almost feel it on your skin.

The Power to Move Mountains is continuing to grow. What was once a calm sea is now a choppy sea. Not uncomfortable, just enough to let you know that it is still there. This time it wants to know your weaknesses. Don't be afraid! Test your boundaries! Be confident! Say it out loud! Let everyone hear how little you're afraid of! Now let's see this memory, a not-so-good one. What has gone wrong here? Where have things unraveled? Let's stop there. Let's rewrite this one, fix it, turn your weakness into strength. Let's make this one better. We can do this together! Now what was a bit of warmth is radiating and growing warmer, but still not hot.

The Power to Move Mountains is booming now. It stomps on your unpleasant memories, or warps them into your positive experiences. Your good memories it displays as heroic feats of strength. When was it that you were savior of the weyr? How did you stop the cavern from collapsing or that ship from capsizing? What was once a small presence, this other persona has grown to monumental proportions. Like a start that has gone super nova, or expanded from a small yellow to a red giant the heat and power radiating fill your mind. An overwhelming confidence washes over you, and for a moment you, too, feel as though you could move mountains. Then in the blink of an eye, you realize you are alone again. But has the feeling gone as well?

Urban Zombie Blood Egg

Big and round lengthwise while lacking in girth and circumference, this egg is chunky and slightly misshapen. Smooth to the touch, the variations in its shading give an appearance of roughness, shades of brown criss-crossing in a grid from apex to base. The hues vary from darkest sepias to light mahogany. A close inspection will reveal a rich, light green just underneath that grid of browns. On one side of the egg, a nearly black line splits the lighter colors sharply, only just curved and blending into the browns at either end.

Trills of too much excitement swoop through a fog of watery darkness, encasing your mind into the safety of an air bubble. Though seaweed and pressure threaten to burst this haven and leave you deluged and drowning, the presence within this egg is vigilant with its presence, excited to be here in your mind, keeping you from harm as it ventures forth into your memories. It seeks out adventures and bravery, looking for what drives you and what makes you courageous. Tendrils of aquamarine, magenta, and yellow swirl tenaciously against the dark, curling around that little mental air bubble. Have you ever felt like all hope is gone, washed up on the rocks? This one would've been there!

Trills of too much excitement share in the distresses found in your mind, unafraid of the darkness it may find. Had some nasty shocks? Perhaps you are trapped! Perhaps you have never felt truly free? Well, this one is on a search to find even the little specks of joy and freedom you have felt, even if it has to search through your memories right down to childhood for that one moment! Tendrils of color expand, more colors joining them until it is a whole rainbow, while frothy whiet spindrift splashes against the cacophony of color, and that little air bubble your mind has been so safely kept within is raised, raised, thrown upward… but where to?

Trills of too much excitement would never have let you hurt! No no, the air bubble might have been tossed, but only to get you onto dry land, to even safer haven. Color tendrils vibrate and buzz with excitement, and the frothy spindrift eventually overwhelms the rainbow, deluging you with its light foaminess. You are left, mentally, at ocean's edge, the breeze light, the being within the egg dancing mentally, excited. Adventures, oh, what adventures await in the real world!

If Smells Could Kill Egg

At one period of this egg's life, perhaps it was green. A little minty even, cool, refreshing and then maybe it was left out in the sun just a little too long and the crispy toasted marshmallow color crept in. From a distance this egg looks particularly thorny with jutting points thrusting up from the surface like a continuous mini mountain range. Up close it's obviously just an illusion but the smell at that distance will definitely make people wish they had just admired it from afar. This egg has a very distinct stomach-churning odor that once someone gets a whiff of, it lingers, for hours. While the rather drab green and brown egg isn't particularly attractive, it's the smell that will definitely leave lasting nightmares.

Rotten Through and Through makes you gag the moment you touch it. It's that smell, that overpowering smell that seems to wrap around you and squeeze until all you know is that terrible stench. It's as if someone has thrown a stinkbomb in an enclosed room and you're unable to escape. As your senses start to scream and you begin to tug your fingers away you are suddenly stopped, paused while fingers were so close to being dragged away. Wait, no, don't go! The inhabitant of the egg seems to be searching for something, poking and prodding at your mind in distinct almost delicate manner. It might feel as if something is burrowing into you, trying to expose all those little tidbits you never wanted exposed. And then as suddenly as it starts your hand feels as if it's almost forcibly shoved back. No no, you won't do at all. I think one eyebrow is lower than the other and that just isn't acceptable.

Rotten Through and Through smells a little less terrible this time, or perhaps you're just getting used to it the very uniquely awesome smell? That must be it. Just like last time there's a very up close and personal inspection of you. There's a string on your left shoulder, take it off, you aren't symmetrical at all. It feels as if the egg twitches in irritation before something seems to have distracted it. This egg, it's perfect is it not? You could draw a line down the center and there'd be two perfect halves. Ahhhhhh. Perfection. Even the little 'spines' on this egg are perfectly symmetrical, you didn't notice it did you? Well perhaps you should look closer, closer, closer, that's it. Next thing you know you're bumping your nose against the side of the egg. Whoops, too close.

Rotten Through and Through no longer affects you like it did that first time. Is that the smell of roses? You take another sniff. No, most definitely not but the scene is very far from the retch-worthy odor that it was in the beginning. Perhaps you've fixed that stray hair in your eyebrow line because the egg isn't leering at you in such a poignant way that makes you squirm (or maybe just roll your eyes). You can tell it's not fully content at its home though. I mean, sure, the egg itself is perfect but it can just sense the sands around it are an utter nightmare. The rolling sands cause that twitching sensation you noticed before in the egg's inhabitant. You get the image of arms flailing before it slumps over and refuses to 'move' again. Apparently having anything but completely smooth sands just isn't something this little one can handle. You give it a mental poke but all is quiet so you have no choice but to move on.

Sweet Juicy Lovin' Egg

Perfectly smooth upon the surface, one would question if this egg was born of glass or just happened to been rolled around the sands a little too much by the ever doting dam and sire. Rich aubergine gives it's sulty embrace to this delicate dark shell; a soft twirl of sweet hues with nothing more to disrupt this dance of color than a single saffron kiss, a kiss that cradles the tiny seeds of chartreuse dotting that bright and brilliant apex.